Kenpachi's Bells
by AmaterasuWings
Summary: Cutesy oneshot with Kenpachi & Yachiru. Learn the origin of the bells in Kenpachi's hair!


**AN: My second [completed] Fanfic! :D Just a cutesy little fic about Kenpachi and Yachiru, he is such her daddy, I love it X3**

Captain of Squad 11, Kenpachi Zaraki. He was a terrifying man, filled with nothing but the insatiable urge to fight, forever seeking stronger opponents to test his strength. His innumerable scars testified to his violent lifestyle. He loved battle so much that he declared he wore an eyepatch and bells in his hair to put him at a disadvantage and therefore make the combat more difficult and more interesting for him, and no one dared question him, no matter how odd the practice seemed. However, Captain Zaraki had a terrible secret about one of his handicaps: the small bells attached to the spikes in his hair. If anyone ever found out….well, no one would. He would make sure of that.

* * *

It had happened late at night while Kenpachi was fast asleep, otherwise he would have _never _been caught off guard. He was dead to the world in his bedroom in the small house in which he was currently living. It was early morning when he awoke, sensing something was terribly wrong. He sat up slowly, reaching for his sword that he constantly kept close by.

_Jingle!_

He looked around rapidly, startled. The jingling continued madly, seeming everywhere at once. Kenpachi jumped up, swinging his sword through the air.  
"Who's there? Come out!"

There was no response, and the shinigami stilled. The ghostly jingling ceased almost immediately. Kenpachi's wide brow furrowed. He turned his head left.

_Jingle!_

….Right.

_Jingle!_

Slowly, as if in a trance, he reached a hand up to his scalp. Where his fingers should have run through his usually long, unkempt hair, he found it pulled tightly back into spikes, and at the end…

_Jingle! Jingle!_

Bells. He had _bells_ in his hair. He thought. He thought some more. He scowled.

"…Yachiru…get out here."

At first nothing happened. Then he heard it. A small, high-pitched giggle sounded from the closed closet on the opposite side of the room. Then the door slid open, and there stood Yachiru, pink hair as bright as her mischievous smile. She blinked her large eyes innocently up at the towering Kenpachi who seemed to radiate pure ire.

"Yachiru?" he asked softly.

"Yes, Ken-chan?" she replied sweetly, her head cocked to one side like a puppy.

"What. Are. These?" He pointed to a different bell with each word.

"Aren't they pretty, Ken-chan?" she asked, delighted with herself. "I can't believe you didn't wake up! But I'm glad you didn't! I wanted it to be a surprise for you! Now you'll sound pretty wherever you—"

She broke off suddenly in the middle of her sentence. Kenpachi had started tugging at a spike while she was talking, and the bell on the end snapped off abruptly with a half-hearted tinkle. Yachiru gasped, and Kenpachi returned his attention to her.

"What?" he grunted.

The young girl's eyes began to water. She sniffled, and her lower lip began to tremble. Kenpachi looked hastily from girl to severed bell and back to girl.

"No no! Yachiru, don't—"

Huge tears began to roll down the child's face, and her voice trembled as she spoke.

"You don't like them, Ken-chan? B-but I worked so hard to braid them all into your hair, a-and I th-thought they sounded so pretty and that K-Ken-chan would love them too!"

Her voice was rising into a pitiful sobbing wail.

"Ken-chan must hate me now! I'm sorry Ken-chan, I'm sorry!"

Yachiru was unable to get anything else out. She simply sat down where she was and starting crying like something abandoned in a box on the side of the road. Kenpachi stuttered and waved his hands around frantically, utterly stupefied as to how to console the weeping little girl.

"No! Don't cry Yachiru!" he said, patting her on the head awkwardly. This was not his line of expertise. Put him on the battlefield and you could find no one who could best his enthusiasm for the fight. But place a crying child in front of him and he was completely lost. He racked his brain for ideas, anything to pacify the small, whimpering Yachiru, who had presently latched onto his shirt and was pressing her overflowing eyes into it.

"Um, uh," Kenpachi said lamely as she continued to cry. There was only one thing he could think of, and he groaned internally at the merest suggestion. But…

"Yachiru! Here, here," he said, unhooking her from his shirt and pressing the rejected bell into her little hands, "Go ahead, braid it back in."

She rubbed at her eyes, the flood temporarily stalled.

"Really Ken-chan?" Her eyes shone both with the remnants of her tears and a new hope.

"Yeah," he said, defeated, "Just do it."

The change was immediate. She squealed excitedly, the grin returning to her features.

"Thank you Ken-Chan! Thank you, thank you! So you _do_ like them in your hair, you _do_?"

"Yeah, they're nice. A great present, thank you Yachiru," he replied, strongly resisting the urge to moan and hold his head in his hands. But there seemed to be no way to avoid it. Yachiru settled herself on his shoulders happily, humming to herself as she returned the small bell to its rightful place. After a minute or two she hopped down, her face the epitome of satisfaction.

"All done!" she proclaimed proudly. Then, without another word, she jumped up onto the end of Kenpachi's bed, curled up like a cat, and was immediately asleep. Kenpachi stared, dumbfounded. How she was able to swing from mood to mood like that he would never understand. But then he smiled at the content little sleeping figure before folding the blanket back to cover her up. The bells rang with minute jingles with every movement. He might not like it, but they were there to stay. But, he thought as he tucked Yachiru in, he might learn to like them, if only for the sake of his little girl.

* * *

Ages later, after Kenpachi had been made the Captain of Squad 11 and in turn had made Yachiru his lieutenant, he still wondered where she had even gotten the bells in the first place. He'd never asked her, and somehow he knew he wouldn't be able to get an answer out of her even if he did. So he simply bit his tongue every time she clambered onto his shoulders with an enthusiastic "Hi Ken-chan!" and reached up to bat at a bell, making it ring with a familiar _jingle!_


End file.
